Though he called one of his books ”Happy Hour,” Alan Shapiro is not a saloon poet. Unlike so many contemporary poets who perform on Chicago stages, he won`t twist and shout, stomp and howl when he reads from his new collection, ”Covenant,” on Wednesday.
”I haven`t been big on the poetry slams,” says Shapiro, who will appear at the Poetry Center at the School of the Art Institute, along with Reginald Gibbons, whose new collection is ”Maybe It Was So.”
Shapiro has no problem with slams, which have become a trendmark of Chicago`s poetry-nightclub scene, bringing the city national attention. ”I think they`re wonderful, actually. But I don`t have that kind of personality or temperament. I`m much too timid.”
Reputedly inspired by wrestling matches, Chicago`s slams have given unprecedented visibility to the city`s poets, at least those brave enough to get up and recite their work in bars, clubs and other arenas, such as the Green Mill Lounge and Club Lower Links, where audiences are encouraged to shout them off the stage when they fail to entertain.
For that and other reasons, not all Chicago poets think the slams are grand. ”My poetics are fairly radical,” says Paul Hoover, a poet, novelist
(”Saigon, Illinois”) and editor of the literary journal New American Writing. ”But as performance poetry has taken off, there`s been an erosion of standards by which even the radicals operate.”
Almost reluctantly, Hoover has become a chief voice of dissent, though it has been difficult for him to be heard above all the tumult and shouting.
”I`m the bad guy,” he says, ”because I represent tradition: the repressive academic who`s trying to stop people from having fun.”
Hoover finds this ironic and discomfiting because he has always been identified with the avant-garde, an early bohemian on Chicago`s poetry front. His radical credentials include a retrospective anthology of experimental poetry, due next fall, that covers the ground between the Beat Generation and John Cage.
No matter how receptive to maverick forms, Hoover compares the slams to
”geek shows” and ”Spanky and Our Gang” comedies, saying: ”It makes for a good evening out, but it puts too much emphasis on performance at the expense of text. It`s the image of poetry without the substance. When you examine the text, you see it`s very often empty stuff.”
Hoover says the slams encourage people to ”consume” poetry exclusively as theater, particularly younger people who consider it ”the dominant idiom” and are restricting themselves to a type of poetry ”that`s surface only.”
”Performability is the value,” Hoover maintains. ”Does it go over with the crowd? I dislike it for the same reason I dislike George Bush. It seems to me that with Bush-and Ronald Reagan-what you get is a talking-head president who knows how to use TV, who knows how to manipulate and motivate people to get the response he wants.”
”Excellent poetry has a quieter, more meditative quality. Its excitement is essentially intellectual, though that`s a difficult word to use. You feel like you have to apologize for it in this country. But I don`t feel like apologizing. Even the best performance poetry has an intellectual basis.”
There are good things to be said for performance poetry, Hoover adds.
”Poetry began with oral literature, so you can say this is a return to its most ancient roots. Its populism is good. It serves a good value.”
It`s uncertain how Hoover might respond to Elizabeth Ncube, the Zimbabwean dancer who will appear in ceremonial warrior dress when she imports her so-called praise poetry to Chicago for three weeks, beginning Wednesday at the Guild Complex at the Hot House, 1569 N. Milwaukee Ave.
A southern African variation on slam, praise poetry evolved from the ancient tribal practice of singing a king`s praises. Performed in beer halls, community centers and academic forums, it has become a means of criticizing established social, economic and political values.
While Alan Shapiro personally shies away from the more theatrical methods of performance poetry, he has little but praise for it as a way of spreading the word. ”There are so few readers of poetry,” he says, ”that the more people who take pleasure from it, by whatever avenue, the better.”
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For information about Alan Shapiro`s and Reginald Gibbons` readings, call 443-3711. For Elizabeth Ncube`s schedule, call 243-5111.
